Four Poems by RC deWinter

 

air song

 

i’m sitting with a plate of buttered toast
in a purple winter twilight
my ears ringing with a jumbled patois
of unintelligible voices
as the wind does its damnedest
to rip the shingles off the roof

if there’s a message here for me
i’m not getting it
i suppose i could flip on some music
but music breaks my heart
so i listen to the voices in the wind
that make as much sense as anything since you

 

dinner at the café surprise

don't sit at my table
and think every dish is for you
i cook for myself
and myself only
whoever walks in the door
is welcome to eat
but whether the dish is pleasing
makes no nevermind to me
there will be bitter
there will be sweet
and sourtangysharppiquant
laid over with leftovers
from last week
last month
last year
crumbs from the cradle
crusts from the grave
stuff yourself
or leave midmouthful
i don't care
there’s never a menu
it's table d’hôte
i put out the meal
i know how to make
without ever expecting a tip

 

fevertalk

 

dizzied by fever
and the circumstances of life

i held tightly to the life jacket
of the railing
as i groped my way downstairs

first to the kitchen for water
to cool the sahara in my throat
then through the parlour
and down the hallway to the bathroom
to do what we do in bathrooms

then everything went black

next i knew i was on the floor
completely disoriented
trying to make my way

on my hands and knees

up stairs that weren’t there

wondering why i couldn’t feel
beyond the first step
and knowing there was no hand

to help me rise i wept and lay there

until reality snapped into place

then got up did what i had to do
walked back to the stairs
managed to climb them without falling
and fell back in my coffin

which is where i am now

wondering despite my promises
if it isn’t time to shut the lid

 

3399

 

you didn’t have had to work as hard as you did to own me
i knew you before i knew you and was waiting for you to appear
but you studied me for who knows how long from the shadows

in some far corner of the universe

and when the time was undeniably impeccably right

you came not as a stranger

but as the man already living in my heart

in the perfection of light and dark
and when i buried my face in the jungle of your chest
where sapwood and heartwood intersect i was dizzied

by the scent of your longing and knew i was home

RC deWinter’s poetry is widely anthologized, notably in New York City Haiku (NY Times, 2/2017), easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, (Patrick Heath Public Library of Boerne, 11/2021),The Connecticut Shakespeare Festival Anthology (River Bend Bookshop Press, 12/2021), Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 8 - Echoes Dancing with Shadows, March 2022)

In print: 2River, Event, Gargoyle Magazine, the minnesota review, Night Picnic Journal, Plainsongs, Prairie Schooner, Southword, The Ogham Stone, Twelve Mile Review, York Literary Review among many others and appears in numerous online literary journals.